Those Lovely Children Of Lys

Chapter Sixteen ~Tokens~

She had that sinister smile on her face which she'd worn when I'd said you're not Blythe, are you? She looked like evil personified. I took deep breaths and looked around. Blythe and Rosemary looked as petrified as me, but Julian, Josh, and Darby looked at us confusedly. I tried looking for Enoch, but then I heard some distant shuffling. He was properly inside, looking for something. 

"Alice," said Blythe flatly, "Pleasure." Alice shook her head. "Foolish as always, and over-assuming. But you've lost your color sweetie, " She flicked a nail, and a fresh raw cut welled with blood in Blythe's wrist, "Let me help you find it." Blythe winced and raising her wrist to her mouth, sucked away the blood. Rosemary kept her hands behind her back. 

"If you fear a nail of mine, can you imagine what will happen when those born of my womb are unleashed?" gloated Alice, her eyes sparkling, "Can you comprehend?". Julian made a noise. Obviously he heard her voice and saw Blythe's wrist. 

"You can do nothing!" Yelled Rosemary impulsively, as she inched towards the door, anxious but trying to be brave, "We've found a second token for Blythe! We're going to trap the creeps forever and you will be nothing more than a cold bone grave." Saying so she lunged for the corridor, but like me, she too was under Alice's power. 

Alice cracked her knuckles, and with a crash, Rosemary fell down. Her screech was enough to rouse the whole Briarwood. It chilled my spine to think of her pain. Miss Wiltshire came running inside. The expression on her face was unimaginable; she looked paler than chalk and more afraid than anyone in the room. 

"Run," she told everyone, "Just run." Darby and Josh tried running for it, but only Darby was successful; before Josh reached the threshold of the room, he was levitating mid-air, an expression of excruciation on his face. "Fool," hissed Alice, "You don't choose the tokens. I do."

And Josh's clothes burst into fire, and Alice dropped him in a cluster of archive shelves. I heard a loud yell and understood who she'd dropped him on. "Enoch!" I shouted, numb with shock. This could not be happening. I turned to Miss Wiltshire. Instead of taking charge, she looked as utterly lost as all of us. "Miss!" shouted Blythe, her face illuminated with the fire starting from the bookshelves behind her, "Take everyone else and get out! She will burn down the whole place!" 

Miss Wiltshire, stirred to action, startled. "But what about--" "We'll be as well as possible," said Blythe, "We owe you and Briarwood Home our lives." The way Miss Wiltshire flinched, I thought she might just run away. But instead, she walked towards Blythe hesitantly, and then enveloped her in a hug. "This is my fault," she said, crying, tears running down her face. Blythe shook her head. "Go," she whispered. 

I found myself running inside the slowly smoking area, trying to look for both Enoch and Josh. Smoke welled around my face, and I doubled up and coughed. I felt someone patting my back. "Leta," said Julian, "I'll get both of them, you go." I shook my head. "I owe--" I was barely able to complete my sentence when I started coughing again. The flames were getting nearer. 

We heard a loud laugh by Alice, followed by Blythe's heart-chilling shriek. "She's butchering...Bly-the...Ju-lian...go get her," I wheezed, and made my way further in. My face burned with the heat, my eyes watered with the smoke. But there's no way I was letting Josh and Julian die. 

Finally, I found Josh, unconscious, with his back charred. Tears sprang up in my eyes, and not because of the smoke. His boyband smile the first time I saw him. His laugh. Poor Blythe. I walked up to him and tried to feel his pulse. Flames were licking close to my heels.

"Leta!" I heard Enoch and jumped. "He's dead," he said, sorrow in his eyes, "Josh is gone." Enoch's hair was singed, and he looked bruised. "Let's go," I said, "But we cannot leave his body here." Enoch nodded, and hauled up Josh. "I didn't want to come out of here alone...I really needed someone coming in for me." Enoch murmured as he lifted Josh on his shoulders. For a second he stopped and looked into my eyes.